Sure, sure, we journalists talk a good game about the importance of engaging stories and evocative pictures… but come on, people really just want more contests!

Nicholas Kristof is soliciting better names for last spring’s war in Iraq. He writes: “I’ll report the top five suggestions and give those writers Iraqi 250-dinar notes with Saddam’s portrait.”

Here’s my entry: Saddam Entanglement. It’s like quantum entanglement, get it? That’s when two particles mysteriously affect one another even when separated by a huge distance (the 6,000 miles from Washington to Baghdad, say). Wikipedia says: “Einstein famously derided entanglement as ‘spooky action at a distance.'”

Hmm, maybe I should have made Spooky Action at a Distance my backup entry…

Anyway, Saddam Entanglement is also apt because let’s face it, quantum physics is almost — almost — as confusing as the situation in Iraq right now.